Face Your Fears

In one chapter of my book, A Rose for Sergei, I write about having to “face my fears.”  I was referring to my silly fear of driving in Washington DC.  It wasn’t the actual driving that bothered me.  It was the fear that I would somehow get lost driving in a big city and not be able to find my way home.  I didn’t have the security blanket of a GPS, smart phone or Google Maps to boost my confidence.

Being concerned about driving and getting lost seems so inconsequential compared to what Sergei had to face when he swam towards the unknown and a new life.  He never even had a place to call home.  But Sergei seemed to take everything in stride.  He faced his fears head on and trusted the outcome.

“With little hope left, I nevertheless started slowly swimming away from the Elagin.  I thought of the documents around my waist.  Would someone find them?  Would anyone know who I was?  Would anyone ever learn the story behind the body they found?  My mind became dizzy as thoughts drifted in and out.  All my life, from six years of age, I had been alone – no mother or father.  It seemed cruel that I would die still alone, lost in a watery grave.”

-Sergei Kourdakov, The Persecutor (Chapter 2, pg. 19)

Facing my fears today brings a whole different view of circumstances to light as I write – fear of failure, of embarrassment . . . of criticism.  As I near completion, and closer to publishing, I realize the book is not turning out exactly the way that I expected.  But it turned out the way it was supposed to be.   

Face your fears . . . they push you forward to do the unexpected.